THREAD: Today is a great day to listen to, and talk about, one of the greatest musical groups of all time - The Gap Band. The Gap Band consisted of 3 brothers Charlie, Ronnie & Robert Wilson who had a string of hits in the late 70s - early 80s that still stand the test of time

The Gap Band had a knack to fuse modern R&B songwriting with funk sensibilities as witnesses in the Moog & synthesizer heavy dancefloor jams like "Burn Rubber On Me", ""Early In The Morning" or "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" - all songs that still go hard to this day

Their lead singer, the great Charlie Wilson (also know as "Uncle Charlie" to many) has gone on to have a resurgence in his career with a whole new younger audience and, for my money, he's one of the greatest soul singers of the era.

In fact one of my favorite R&B songs from the mid 2000s was Charlie Wilson's criminally slept on record "Zoom" which I received with little fanfare from a record pool many years ago. This song still goes though

The Gap Band released classic song after classic song, from the BBQ / block party staple "Outstanding" to the Nas sampled "Yearning For Your Love" to the George Clinton influenced "I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance" AKA WHOOPS UPSIDE YOUR HEAD - all amazing tunes

One of my favorite songs as a kid, a song that impacted me in a major way (these songs will be in another thread to come) was funk monster "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" which doesn't fail to get me moving at any time. And also check out these outfits!

About that song, I remember vividly being in school as a really young kid and singing this song in class on Tuesday, May 14th 1985 (as well as singing Rock Master Scott's "The Roof Is On Fire"). There's a very simple, and yet complex, reason why we were singing these songs

On Monday, May 13th 1985 all of us had witnessed the city and the Philadelphia Police Department drop a bomb from a helicopter on a house, killing 11 people including kids, and letting an entire city block burn to the ground

A modern american city dropping a bomb on its civilians, but also specifically, dropping bombs on Black people in a Black community. This happened in my lifetime. The group that was bombed was named MOVE and only two of their members survived: Ramona Africa and Birdie Africa

You can read more about MOVE and what happened on that terrible day here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE 

This is a memory that is so seared into my brain that I will never be able to shake the horror of what I saw that day, on TV broadcasts as well as the sky darkening with smoke over West Philly. And I'm still shocked to this day that so many people have NEVER heard about this

This bombing of Osage Ave, the MOVE house, and killing of innocent Black people is a modern American tragedy that unfortunately has many echoes of the past. And I cannot listen to that Gap Band song without thinking of how Philly dropped a bomb on its own civilians

But the thing about the connection of the MOVE bombing and The Gap Band is that there's a deeper connection. The Wilson brothers were known of their unique fashion sense, with many of their outfits being stylized, funky, cowboy outfits

The Wilson Brothers hailed from Tusla, Oklahoma and I've always though that their cowboy sartorial choices were a distinct nod to their roots as native Oklahomans. Plus you can't front, these guys were incredibly sharp. I mean, how BOSS are these looks though???

But the true nod to their roots came in their name. The GAP Band. What is the GAP? The intersection of Greenwood, Archer & Pine Streets, in Tulsa Oklahoma. Better known to many (not enough TBH) as a section of Black Wall Street. Read about Greenwood here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood,_Tulsa

Greenwood was a Black community in Tusla that had be founded by emancipated slaves and by the early 20th Century had become "Black Wall Street" - one of the most prominent concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States. Greenwood was a promised land

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a group of rabid, racist white people mobbed through Greenwood killing hundreds of Black people & burning down almost the entire community in one of this nations's worst incidents of racial violence in its history. Known as the Tulsa Race Riots.

During the Tulsa race riot that destroyed Black Wall Street, people even dropped improvised bombs from crop-duster airplanes. Dropping bombs on their own cities, their own people. Much like what happened in Philadelphia 66 years later

So what am I getting at here? I don't know, but all these things are intertwined in my mind. I can't listen to The Gap Band without thinking of MOVE, and Tulsa.

So, what's the takeaway from all that I guess?

NEVER forget what happened to MOVE in Philly in 1985.

NEVER forget what happened to Black Wall Street in Tulsa in 1921.

ALWAYS play some Gap Band.